UO Diagnostica Ematochimica, Azienda Ospedaliero- Universitaria di Parma, Parma, Italy.
Clin Chem Lab Med. 2012 Mar;50(3):435-9. doi: 10.1515/CCLM.2011.672.
According to the most recent global cancer statistics, the burden of malignancies continues to increase worldwide, so that there is a compelling need to reinforce the screening strategies and implement novel diagnostic approaches for early detection. Canines are widely used by police forces and civilian services for detecting explosives and drugs due to their superior olfactive apparatus, which is characterized by a detection threshold as low as parts per trillion. There is mounting evidence that dogs might be effectively trained to detect patients with various form of cancers due to the presence of a characteristic "odor signature". In particular, preliminary studies reported that appropriately trained dogs exhibit an extraordinary ability to detect melanoma as well as prostate, breast, ovary and lung cancers by recognizing a characteristic "odor signature" in body, urines, sweat, breath and even blood. The most problematic issue that has emerged so far is the large heterogeneity of performance across the different studies as well as within the same study, which might be dependent upon genetic characteristics or training methodology. This article is aimed to provide an overview of the available data on cancer sniffer dogs, highlighting the appealing perspectives and the potential drawbacks.
根据最近的全球癌症统计数据，恶性肿瘤的负担在全球范围内持续增加，因此迫切需要加强筛查策略并采用新的诊断方法进行早期检测。由于犬类具有优越的嗅觉器官，其检测阈值低至万亿分之几，因此被警方和民用服务部门广泛用于探测爆炸物和毒品。越来越多的证据表明，犬类可以通过训练有效地识别各种类型癌症患者的特征“气味特征”。特别是，初步研究报告称，经过适当训练的狗具有非凡的能力，可以通过识别身体、尿液、汗液、呼吸甚至血液中的特征“气味特征”来检测黑色素瘤以及前列腺癌、乳腺癌、卵巢癌和肺癌。到目前为止，出现的最成问题的问题是不同研究以及同一研究内部的性能存在很大的异质性，这可能取决于遗传特征或训练方法。本文旨在概述有关癌症嗅探犬的现有数据，强调其吸引人的观点和潜在的缺点。
